French train attack: ‘Go, let’s go,’ Americans take down terrorist

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L-R: Anthony Sadler, a native of Pittsburg, Calif, along with friends Alek Skarlatos and Spencer Stone, subdued a gunman on a high-speed train in Arras, France, Friday, Aug. 22, 2015.

Tony Sadler, 57, at his home in Rancho Cordova, Calif., on Saturday, Aug. 22, 2015. Sadler is the father of Anthony Sadler, who was one of the three Americans that overpowered a heavily-armed gunman on a train in northern France on Friday.

SACRAMENTO — Italy, Germany and Netherlands were in their rearview mirror as three men who first met in middle school in suburban Sacramento traveled by high-speed train to their next destination, Paris.

As the train zipped through Belgium on Friday evening, a man carrying an assault rifle and handgun entered their train car. A shot was heard. Glass shattered. A train worker sprinted past them.

One of the men, Alek Skarlatos ducked down, turned to his friend Spencer Stone and gave the go-ahead: “Go, let’s go.” A step behind them was a third friend, Pittsburg-born Anthony Sadler.

With those three words, as told to European television Saturday, the three Americans rushed the attacker, disarmed him, and thumped him on the head with the muzzle of the rifle until he was unconscious.

Top French officials, President Barack Obama and people in the suburbs of Sacramento where the three men grew up have praised their swift action, foiling a plot that could have ended in bloodshed on the packed train.

“We’re still wrapping our head around it. We’re grasping for the magnitude of it,” Sadler’s father, 57-year-old Tony Sadler Sr. said from his Rancho Cordova home Saturday. “We certainly understand the magnitude of his efforts and what could’ve happened had he not went into action. At the same time it’s kind of difficult to associate this with your son, so there’s a sense of reality versus disbelief.”

The European vacation began Aug. 11, with Sadler and Skarlatos meeting Stone in Europe, where Stone, a first-class serviceman with the Air Force, is stationed, the elder Sadler said. After stops in Venice, Munich and Amsterdam, the three men were planning on spending the weekend in Paris.

In interviews with European television stations and The Associated Press, Skarlatos and Sadler gave detailed accounts of the attack aboard the train from Amsterdam to Paris.

Sadler said that they saw a train employee sprint down the aisle followed by a man with an automatic rifle.

“As he was cocking it to shoot it, Alek just yells, ‘Spencer, go!’ ” Sadler said.

Stone jumped up, rushed the gunman and grabbed him by the neck as Skarlatos wrestled the handgun and assault rifle from the suspect. Skarlatos, who recently served in Afghanistan with the National Guard, repeatedly hit the suspect over the head with the muzzle of the rifle. Stone and Sadler also beat the suspect until he was unconscious. He was then hogtied.

A video posted on YouTube shows the suspect bound facedown. Groans are heard as the men search for the tossed handgun. “Dude, I tried to shoot him,” one man says.

Skarlatos next searches other train cars for more shooters, then returns to dismantle the guns, discovering that the trigger was pulled on the assault rifle, but it did not fire. Sadler searches and finds towels and a scarf Stone can use to help a man with a serious wound injured by the suspect’s box cutter. Stone, who has paramedic training, tends to the victim as he also is bleeding from stab wounds from the suspect. The men held the suspect and waited for authorities to arrive. French officials identified the suspect who was arrested as 26-year-old Ayoub El-Khazzani, flagged by Spanish authorities last year for links to Islamic radical movements.

Stone, who suffered injuries that were not life-threatening, was released from the hospital later Saturday.

“I’m really proud no one got hurt, and I’m really proud Spencer was able to save that guy’s life, even though he was wounded himself,” said 23-year-old Sadler, a senior kinesiology major at Sacramento State. “It was really amazing to watch. Everybody was scared. It all happened within seconds.”

To Skarlatos, those seconds did not feel real.

“We were scared for sure, but adrenaline mostly took over,” the 22-year-old said. “I didn’t have time to think. I didn’t even realize or fully comprehend what was going on. I honestly didn’t even believe it. It felt like it was a dream or a movie.”

Friends since their days as middle schoolers at Freedom Christian School in Fair Oaks, the three men, now in their early 20s, have kept in touch over the years even as Skarlatos moved to Oregon to live with his father and attend high school, family members said.

Friends of the Stone family described Stone as a courageous and kind young man.

“He’d see me taking groceries out of my trunk, and he’s come over and help me bring them in my house without being asked,” said 87-year-old Rosemary Campbell, a longtime neighbor of the Stone family in Carmichael. “I’m not surprised he would do that. He’s that type of young man that would have gone forward without thinking about his own safety.”

Another family friend, 65-year-old Janet Kampouries, added: “I think it was divine providence. (His mother) has a deep faith in God, and we don’t attribute it to anything else. They were there to do what they had to do.”

Sadler’s father said he’s planning a celebration for when his son returns.

“I’m a crier, so I’m sure there will be some crying when he comes home,” he said. “And a lot of hugging and holding.”

Ramona Giwargis is the San Jose City Hall reporter at The Mercury News. After stints in Eureka, Salinas and Merced, Giwargis returned to San Jose to cover local government and politics for her hometown newspaper. Giwargis won numerous awards for investigative journalism and is a graduate of San Jose State University.

David DeBolt is a reporter for the Bay Area News Group who covers Oakland. DeBolt grew up in the Bay Area and has worked for daily newspapers in Palo Alto, Fairfield and Walnut Creek. He joined the organization in 2012.

Otto Warmbier was arrested in January 2016 at the end of a brief tourist visit to North Korea. He had been medically evacuated and was being treated at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center when he died at age 22.